Former World Championship Wrestling superstar Marcus “Buff” Bagwell filed a lawsuit against the WWE earlier this week in the United States District Court of Connecticut, claiming that he is owed royalties from usage of material featuring his matches on the WWE Network.

In the lawsuit, Bagwell is alleging that he was under contract to the company from 1991 until 2001 by virtue of his contracts with World Championship Wrestling and WWE purchasing WCW in March 2001. Bagwell notes that his World Championship Wrestling deal expired 4 days after the WWE (then WWF) purchased the company and when he was signed by WWE to a new deal in June 2001, he was signed under the WCW brand and name for his new contract which was executed by WWE’s Ed Kaufman, however the deal only lasted two months as he was released in August 2001. Bagwell claims that the WWE deal merged with aspects of his former World Championship Wrestling contractual terms, specifically the 1998 WCW deal that expired in March 2001.

According to the filing, the WWE contract stated, “This agreement contains the entire understanding of the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof and all prior understanding, negotiations and agreements are merged into this agreement. There are no other agreements, representations, or warranties not set forth herein with respect to the subject matter hereof…”, which means that Bagwell is arguing that the WWE are bound by his June 2001 contract in regard to payment of royalties for pay-per-view events and home video material and noted in the lawsuit that the following language from the contract has allegedly been ignored by the WWE. On pay-per-view events, the filing stated, “WCW shall allocate 5% of the Net Receipts paid to WCW with respect to the direct sale by WCW of WCW Pay-Per-Views to a talent royalty pool. Thereafter, WCW shall pro-rate payment to Plaintiff and all other talent appearing in such WCW Pay-Per-Views in the same proportion as was the compensation paid to Plaintiff for his appearances in the Pay-Per-Views to the total amount paid to all talent for their appearances on the Pay-Per-Views”, while on Home Videos, the filing stated, “The WCW Video Product is a compilation or derivative work of multiple individual WCW Pay-Per-Views in their entirety, such as a collection of videos, e.g., a WrestleMania box set, payment to Plaintiff shall be calculated as follows: 5% of the Net Receipts paid to WCW shall comprise the talent royalty pool, which shall first be pro-rated based on the number of individual videos in the compilation, and then the payment to Plaintiff for each video shall be consistent with the royalty payment to the Plaintiff at the time each individual video was first released.”

Bagwell’s lawsuit is questioning the money allegedly owed to him as the WWE Network, which streams those old WCW pay-per-view events, grossed $154.9 million in the final quarter of 2015 and is claiming he is owed money from the Network revenue because of language in his 2001 WWE contract that reads, “video cassettes, videodiscs, CD ROM, or other technology, including technology not yet created” and is arguing that the streaming technology used for the WWE Network falls under that category and claims that when WWE released Bagwell in August 2001, language from that agreement noted that WWE was buying out all of their obligations from the contract, with the exception of royalties that Bagwell would be owed going forward as determined by his contract, while the language in the release also notes that Bagwell could not bring legal action against the company as long as they maintained the terms of his release agreement and Bagwell alleges that WWE has not breached the agreement by not paying him royalties, stating that a first quarter 2016 royalty statement sent to him by the WWE showed that he was owed no royalties, despite the WCW material being featured in the WWE Network’s video-on-demand section.

Bagwell in the lawsuit acknowledges that under his 1998 World Championship Wrestling deal, he was owed no royalties for pay-per-views or videotapes, however he is claiming that he is now owed for that material as the WWE contract changed the language regarding that material. The lawsuit also acknowledges that the WWE have successfully defended themselves against similar claims from the Eddie Gilbert estate, former AWA star Doug “Somers” Somerson and former Global Wrestling Federation star Stevie Ray, but states that those talent listed had no contractual right to sue the company and is arguing that due to the alleged breach of contract, he has that right, noting his lawsuit is not preempted by the Copyright Act because WWE owns the right to WCW copyrighted works featuring Plaintiff’s intellectual property, subject to royalty payment obligations for the sale of those copyrighted works”. The lawsuit also claims that Bagwell’s contract with the WWE allows for him to have his own independent certified accountant audit WWE’s books from his time in World Championship Wrestling and after the WWE bought the company “for the purpose of verifying the accuracy thereof, during WCW’s normal business hours and upon reasonable notice. Such audit shall be conducted in a manner that will not unreasonably interfere with WCW’s normal business operations. Wrestler shall not audit WCW’s books and records more than twice during any calendar year and no such audit shall be conducted later than one (1) year after the last statement of royalties is given, delivered or sent to Wrestler. Each audit is limited to seven (7) days in duration. Statements of royalties may be charged from time to time to reflect year-end adjustments, to correct clerical errors and for similar purposes.”

The lawsuit notes that Bagwell attempted this in June 2016 and was initially told an audit could be done in late July or early August 2016, only to instead be informed by WWE’s counsel, K&L Gates, that there would be no audit as Bagwell’s accountant “asserted a pretextual and invalid audit request to attempt to stealthily obtain that information” and that since Bagwell is not paid WWE Network royalties, there is nothing to audit. Bagwell is now claiming that since the company has blocked his attempts to audit the records as he was contractually allowed to do so, the company forfeited any claim that Bagwell did not satisfy any of WWE’s prerequisite actions contractually before he filed his lawsuit and is stating that it is an officially filed dispute of WWE’s most recent royalty statement for him, per the language in his June 2001 WWE contract. In the lawsuit it is noted that this has set up a class action lawsuit for performers in a similar situation, noting a sub-class for talents who signed specific WWE deals in the past, noting that exempt from the class would be those who have signed a WWE Legends deal from January 2004 onwards as language in those deal specifically notes that the company will not pay them royalties for “internet subscriptions or video on demand fees”. The lawsuit also requests the court prevent WWE from placing PPV and non-PPV material on the WWE Network until the class are paid royalties and that the class be paid within 90 days of the end of a financial quarter, while Bagwell has also requested a trial by jury. WWE have not yet been served with the lawsuit or commented and have until November 9th to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.